.........................................................................

Films by Steven Young

Art by Steven Young

Music by Steven Young

Copyright 2009 | Powewred by Libra Media

'BLANK'

'BLANK' (digital, 22 mins, b&W, 2002) Drug addled vampires, psychotic swingers, testosterone neighbours and a rabid dog bite. All part of life's rich tapestry for Blank, the likeable but dangerous oddball who's flights of fancy always end in tears. But when the nightmare is over, Charles Benjamin Blank is eager to play out another twisted adventure.

"I made 'Blank' straight out of film school in Vancouver. I'd worked with actor David Richmond-Peck when he played the lead roll in a filmschool production 'Seaweed' I had written and directed. He 's a very talented actor, and I think his portrayal of the characters really made the film something special. My own shabby apartment in downtown Vancouver was transformed into Blank's trash filled hovel of horrors. We didn't get permission to film, let alone bring giant cockroaches and locusts into the building, so we had to pretend there was nothing peculiar going on behind my door whenever the manager came to investigate the noise!" "'Blank' took five or six days to film with a crew of around seventeen volenteers made up of young Vancouver film makers. The most memorable part of making 'Blank' was the editing.

I had loan of an apple mac to complete the edit and the sound, but I only had it for seven days before my schoolmate returned from America to collect the equipment. I decided that the best way to get the film finished would be to stay awake and undergo some serious sleep depravation, and when he returned a week later I hadn't slept a wink and was in a catatonic, dream-like state with the film completely finished! I was surprised when the film won best edit at the Toronto Online Film Festival a few months later - I think the film has captured the essence of that wired and wonderful time!"

Watch Blank here!

'Haly Saint'

'HALY SAINT' (digital, 32 mins, colour, 2004) The nightmarish technicolour vision of a teenage rock fan hooked on mood-enhancing prescription pills, who creates a bizarre 'miracle machine' in his closet out of a tv, an old church idol and an unexploded bombshell found in the wasteland surrounding his dilapidated apartment. We follow Zander on the day femme rockers Haly Saint play in town, and he decides to bring his idol to the idol. Think 'The Wizard Of Oz' on a crystal meth trip and you're getting close!

 ''Haly Saint took ten days to shoot, a much lengthier and more complex production. I love the way the film looks, but inferior sound quality lets it down a little. The actual shooting of this film was frought with complications, both technical and personal! My Canadian visa had long since run out by this time, so I had to stay as anonymous as I could whilst directing a film with a crew over over twenty people in a warehouse in the heart of Vancouver! The shoot involved a lot of bluescreen and sets with blue screen elements in them, and persistent problems with the Canon XL-1 we were using made us lose the first two days of filming.

I had already had some strange things happen to me during the writing/preproduction faze, but the shoot itself felt, to me and some of those involved, like it was shrouded with dark energy and invisible oppression! Two crew members were literally spooked into leaving the production, and when it came to the filming of the Satanic ritual with a 15 foot hell pig as its centre-piece, our continuity lady bailed out after a heavy studio light came crashing down on her with no explainable cause! The possible reason for all this mahem is something I'd love to write about in detail some time - but I'm not sure anyone would believe me! (haha!) Making this film really had a long-lasting effect on me, and it wasn't until three years later that I broke the bad spell Haly Saint, when the epic year-long filming of 'Absentia' turned out to be a positive, fun time for all involved!"

Watch Haly Saint here!

'Absentia'

Covert missions beyond the solar plexus vortex..

an inner space race for esoteric power...

Futuristic knights crusading for the soul..

This is the strange world of Kenneth Maya, the beatnik artist who's shamanic dabblings with Absentia Divinium lead him on a bizarre inward quest - to free humanity from the tyranny of the sixth beacon! 'Absentia' was written, directed,filmed and edited by Steven Young. Over two years in the making, this micro-budget marionette odyssey combines scratch-built models and miniatures with 'orally-enhanced' string puppets and old-school special effects. The film was produced on a budget of £5,000 during a two year period between March 2005 and June 2007. With the exception of the occasional unwitting volenteer, the movie was shot with a two man crew of Steven Young and Steve 'Bricky' Burgess. The sets, models and props were constructed from cardboard, sticky tape and recycled trash.

'Absentia was puppeteered by Steve Burgess with Steve Young operating camera and lights. Split screen effects were used in scenes where several puppet characters are seen in the same shot. The 20" marionettes were made to classic 'Thunderbirds' specifications, with one major difference - these puppet characters have the actors' mouths motion tracked and composited onto their faces, with uniquely strange results. The soundtrack to 'Absentia' was written and recorded by multi-talented musician Fil Hill, who brought together a great group of musicians to donate their vocal, sitar and percussion skills to the film. The score also features three songs specially written for the film by The Magic Otters.

It was a great experience making Absentia. I've always been fascinated with models and miniatures and i'm an avid toy collector. Its always been an ambition of mine to make a film with a cast of puppets, ever since watching Thunderbirds and Stingray as a kid. Steve Burgess has a similar love of model making, and after a few meetings we decided between us, with enough cardboard and sticky tape permitting, we could make just about anything! We spent several months in preproduction for the film - constructing and stringing the marionettes, experimenting with lightweight casting materials - It was a very adventurous project which at many points seemed to impossible to complete!

We began with a 20 page script and started shooting in March 2005, then I took the footage and started experimenting with the mouths using After Effects, which I had to learn from scratch. The results were so good I decided to expand the story into a 60 minute featurette and begin a lengthy second stage of production, with the actors; mouths being added to the puppets as we went along. We finished shooting in the autumn of 2006, and I then spent just under a year on the post production, all of which was done in After Effects. Im very pleased with the finished film. It takes the puppet adventure into strange new territories!

Watch Absentia Here!